The athlete admitted he was upset that the 83-year-old condemned his peaceful protest, saying:

"It is disappointing to hear a Supreme Court justice call a protest against injustices and oppression 'stupid, dumb' in reference to players doing that."

In fact, the NFL player explained that the New York native's comments completely avoid the actual issues of racism and police brutality in our country, adding:

"I was reading an article and it refers to white critique of black protests and how they try to delegitimize it by calling it 'idiotic, dumb, stupid,' things of that nature, so they can sidestep the real issue. As I was reading that I saw more and more truth how this has been approached by people in power and white people in power in particular."

The 28-year-old confessed that he understands that people are offended by his actions because of their loyalty to the things the American flag represents.

However, he also insisted that those people are missing the point, stressing:

"People are getting too caught up in the flag. At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth and I am not going to value a piece of cloth over people's lives. That's just not something I can do, it's not something I feel morally right doing and my character won't allow me to do that."

We couldn't agree more.

And, even in the midst of all this controversy, Mr. Kaepernick is happy with himself "in my relationships and everything that is going on in my life."

"My metabolism actually changed like crazy this year. I have Hashimoto's disease. It's a thyroid disease, and it's now been two years since taking the medication for it, so for the VS show I didn't want to lose any more weight, I just want to have muscles in the right place, and if my butt can get a little perkier, then that's good."